The present invention relates to tape printers which print document data of character strings on a tape as a printing medium to produce a label, and more particularly to a tape printer which reads out a plurality of document data stored in a memory and then prints the plurality of document data on a tape to produce a plurality of labels.
Conventionally, there are known tape printers which produce title labels to be stuck to audio or video cassettes and other various labels to be stuck to other articles.
In each such tape printer, a plurality of document data of a character string input from a keyboard are stored in a memory, desired document data is read from the memory as requested and printed on a tape by a thermal head, the printed tape portion is discharged through a tape discharge port to the outside, and the discharged printed tape portion is then cut by a manually or automatically driven cutter disposed between the thermal head and the tape discharge port to thereby produce a label.
When a plurality of labels are produced by reading a desired plurality of document data from among the plurality of document data stored in the memory and printing the read plurality of document data on the tape, one-document data is first read from the memory area and printed on the tape in accordance with the respective user's instructions. Then, the printed tape portion is cut by the cutter to produce a label. This process is repeated on the other respective document data to be printed.
As described above, in the conventional tape printer, each time one label is produced, and then one-document data is read from the memory and printed, and then the printed tape potion is cut. Thus, the label production is troublesome for the user, and much time is taken for production of the plurality of labels.
Generally, in the tape printer, the tape carrying mechanism which carries the tape in printing is capable of carrying the tape in one direction, but not in the reverse direction. When a label is produced by the tape printer, a margin of a predetermined length is provided at each of the leading and trailing ends of the document (character string) to be printed. Since the tape carrying mechanism only can carry the tape in one direction and not in the reverse direction, the tape is required to be cut at its leading end portion during printing to ensure a margin set at the leading end of the character string when the set margin is shorter than the distance between the thermal head and the cutter.
As described above, when a plurality of labels are produced successively based on the plurality of document data stored in the memory in the conventional tape printer, the tape is required to be cut at its leading end portion to ensure a margin at the leading end of the printed character string each time one label is produced, which leads to wasteful consumption of the tape.